The Metropolitan Museum of Art will acquire the Neue Galerie's Fifth Avenue building and its collection of 20th-century Austrian and German art, starting in 2028. The collection was built by cosmetics magnate Ronald S. Lauder, who founded the Neue Galerie in 2001.
This merger significantly expands the Met's holdings of early modernist German and Austrian works, including pieces by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, and Oskar Kokoschka. It also secures a prime Fifth Avenue location for the Met, allowing it to present these works in a dedicated space while preserving the Neue Galerie's distinct institutional identity.